


She Just Knocks Me Dead

by avislightwing



Series: We Will Go Dancing [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Academia, Bad Flirting, Comfort, Commitment Arc, Disaster Lesbians, Dissociation, Established Relationship, F/F, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Science, Swearing, to be fair mary is at least 55 percent functional
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-03-11 22:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13533420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: A collection of my Nadiya/Mary Sage drabbles. Will be updated as I write more of them.





	1. Difficult

 “Ow. _Ow_ , Jesus, girl, quit it.” Mary Sage shoved Nadiya away.

Nadiya pursed her lips into a tight line. “You’re bleeding. I need to patch you up.”

“No you don’t. I can go ahead and bleed my fuckin’ brains out.” Mary Sage’s face, around her freckles, was bright red. There was a long cut across her chest and abdomen, and it hadn’t stopped bleeding yet.

“You’re going to pass out if you don’t let me stop the bleeding,” Nadiya snapped. “You want that? Then I’ll patch up your _unconscious_ body. You lose either way.”

“You know what? Fine. Fine.” Mary Sage jerked the buttons of her flannel shirt open one by one, shrugged out of it, and threw it against the wall. “ _There_. Go on. Patch.”

Nadiya, scientist and genius extraordinaire, decided that it would be better not to say anything and get straight to stopping the bleeding, because she was feeling very gay and she had a feeling if she opened her mouth the only thing that would come out would be something very complimentary about Mary Sage’s boobs. So instead, she pressed the towel in her hands against the cut, trying her best not to think about anything except medical, scientific things. Sutures. RBC count. Every moment of lab safety seminars and what she was told to do if someone hurt themselves. Obviously.

It wasn’t working very well.


	2. Trypanophobia

“Mary, I just need to take a few samples. For _science_.” Nadiya brandished a syringe in Mary’s direction.

“No, you don’t. Fuck _off_.”

Nadiya glared at Mary. “You’re not making this any easier.”

“And you’re being an asshole. Fuck. Off.”

Nadiya opened her mouth to reply in kind when she realized that Mary Sage was shaking, and behind her glasses, her eyes were wide with… fear. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Sure. That’s what _they_ said too, and then they fucked my head right up, didn’t they?”

“Who – oh.” Nadiya slowly set her syringe down on the table. “The Fellowship.”

“Yeah, the goddamn Fellowship, using _your_ goddamn science shit! I’d rather keep what brain cells I have left, thanks!”

“Okay. Fine. Right. No experiments,” Nadiya said. “Uh…” She wasn’t sure what to do. Mary Sage sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Sorry?”

“Better fuckin’ be,” Mary Sage mumbled, scrubbing her eyes. “You get near me with needles or – or stimplants or whatever again and I’ll stab you for real.”

“Duly notes.” Nadiya looked around the room, as if expecting to find a sign labeled What To Do When Your Girlfriend Starts Crying Because You Tried To Do Science On Her. There was no such sign. Instead, Nadiya started rummaging in her bag and pulled out a crumpled Kleenex and a tin of breathmints. She wished briefly for Irene – she’d know what to do in this situation. “Here?…” She held both items out to Mary Sage.

Mary snorted, but took the Kleenex and blew her nose loudly. “You’re super bad at this girlfriend stuff.”

“Says the girl who got me an extension cord for Valentine’s Day.”

“You said you needed one!” Mary Sage took the mints as well, popping three into her mouth. “You’re lucky I didn’t get you a padlock. How many times has your place been broken into now?”

“Seven. Living on a part-time teaching salary sucks.”

Mary Sage grinned, though it was still a bit on the watery side. “Nerd.”

“Weirdo.” Nadiya leaned in and pecked Mary Sage on the forehead. “No more science, I promise. I like your ridiculous head the way it is.”

“Love you, Reed Richards,” Mary Sage mumbled.

“Love you too, Space Cadet.”


	3. Licorice Lullabies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I was reading through the commitment tag on your blog, and someone sent in a headcanon thing regarding Mary in which you said that Mary can never visit Nadiya at work because of flashbacks. May I suggest a prompt for Mary trying to visit Nadiya at work?" (Went slightly AWOL on that.)
> 
> warnings for flashbacks, dissociation, slight emetophobia.
> 
> All italicized sections taken directly from TAZ Commitment Episode 4 (thanks to @tazscripts on Tumblr).

_And at that moment, Mary Sage starts to scream._

Mary missed Nadiya.

She’d been holed up in her lab for a week now. Mary missed the way Nadiya made coffee so strong it could take the roof off your mouth; she missed the faint scent of anise and chemicals that always clung to Nadiya’s clothes; she missed having her head in Nadiya’s lap, Nadiya reading a scholarly journal with one hand in Mary’s hair, the absent movement through Mary’s curls sending pleasant tingles down her spine.

But she missed Nadiya most at night.

It wasn’t just that she had trouble sleeping alone, without Nadiya’s cool limbs and sharp elbows and comforting weight nearby. It wasn’t that she kept getting overheated and having to throw her covers off. It wasn’t even that she missed waking Nadiya up by tickling her ribs and kissing her silly, though she did.

No, the problem was the dreams.

 _“Uh, boss? I-It’s too much for her! I-I-I think it’s_ way _too much for Mary!”_

It was three in the morning, and for the fourth night in a row, Mary had woken up in a cold sweat, her head aching so badly she could barely see, frozen mid-scream, Martine’s cold voice echoing in her ears. Usually when that happened, Nadiya would joke awake. She’d wrap a fleece blanket around Mary’s shoulder, then wrap her in a fierce hug. The pressure and the feeling of Nadiya’s silk-straight hair against her face would usually be enough to ground her. Her limbs would unfreeze, and she’d cling to Nadiya until they both drifted back to sleep.

It was a lot harder to get her head on straight without Nadiya.

Mary swung her legs off the side of the bed. Grabbed her glasses and shoved them on her face. Her throat was dry and her head was still throbbing, so she half-stumbled to the apartment’s kitchenette for a cup of water – tap water in a mug, because Nadiya owned nearly as many mugs as she did t-shirts, and didn’t believe in “specialized equipment for necessary day-to-day human functions” like drinking water and wearing clothes.

Over the rim of her mug, Mary eyed her cell, lying on the table. Remy had bought it for her:  a simple flip phone that couldn’t be traced or hacked and wouldn’t fizzle out immediately if her powers activated.

Reluctantly, Mary set the mug down with a muted clink on the laminate countertop and picked up the phone. She flipped it open, scrolled to Nadiya’s number (labeled “Reed Richards” in the contacts), and pressed the Call button.

The phone rang twice before Nadiya picked up. “H’lo?” she mumbled. “Mary? ‘Zat you?”

“Uh, hey, Nad,” Mary said. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal. Gotta check cell decay anyways. What’s up?”

Mary’s eyes unfocused, and the iron crosses hanging on the wall across from her went blurry. “Miss you,” she said, and her words sounded mumbled even to her own ears.

“Hey, you okay? Need me to come home?”

“Just wanna see you. Can… can I come?”

“Sure, yeah. Stay on the phone with me as you walk, and I’ll come let you in when you get here.”

“’Kay.” Mary pulled on her favorite ratty sweater and fumbled the door open, making sure to lock and bolt it securely behind her. The night outside was clammy, and Mary wasn’t quite sure whether she should be shivering or sweating or both. Slowly, she set out down the street, phone still pressed to her ear. “’Kay, I’m coming.”

“Right. Mmm. Right.” There’s a hissing sound. “Sorry, making coffee. You want any?”

“Nnn.”

“Mary?”

_And Martine takes her gun out, and points it at Mary’s head, and says, “I… don’t think so, sweetheart. I think we need to finish this.”_

Mary didn’t respond, but stopped moving. “Nad. Need you,” she mumbled, and swallowed down the urge to gag, between the flashbacks and her pounding head.

“Shit. On my way. How far’d you get? I didn’t realize it was that bad.” There’s a rattling through the phone, the sound of a door opening and closing. “Stay put, I’ll be right there.”

Mary swayed slightly on her feet, only now realizing they were bare. She didn’t think she could go any further even if she tried.

“Okay. I’m only a couple blocks away. Keep breathing, _mona_.”

The next thing Mary knew, Nadiya was in front of her, taking the phone from her numb hands and gripping her shoulders. “We have to get you home,” Nadiya said decisively.

“Your… cell stuff?” Mary asked.

Nadiya’s mouth twitched, but she shrugged, reached a hand up to adjust her slightly-askew hijab. “I can always figure out a way to redo it. Plenty of grant money left. Fuck that experiment, anyways, right?” Nadiya wrapped an arm tightly around Mary’s waist and they started back towards the apartment. After a minute of silence, Nadiya muttered, “Sorry for being such a crap girlfriend. Should’ve come home sooner.”

“Mary’s good,” Mary murmured. “S’fine, Nad.”

“Obviously not. You’re dissociating hardcore. What happened?”

“Dream.”

_“Mary, shut down all the electronics in the United States of America.”_

_And Mary screams again._

Mary winced, and then stopped as Nadiya unlocked the door. When had they gotten back?

“Has it been bad? Since I’ve been gone?”

Mary nodded.

“You gotta tell me this stuff, yeah? Spell it out for me. I’m no Irene, I have like, minus two for empathy.” Nadiya stripped off Mary’s damp sweater. “Bed.”

Mary let Nadiya nudge her back into bed. After a moment to change and take her hijab off, Nadiya slipped in beside her, curling her body around Mary’s and holding her tightly. Without conscious effort, Mary’s limbs relaxed, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“Better?” Nadiya stroke a hand through Mary’s curls, catching in the tangles.

The aching pressure behind Mary’s eyes eased at the sensation, and she managed to set her glasses on the nightstand before letting her eyes flicker closed. “Yeah. Thanks, Nad.”

“Jesus, yeah, of course.”

“You’re a good girlfriend,” Mary said sleepily, squirming even further back into Nadiya’s arms. “Love you, Nad.”

Nadiya’s voice, when she responded, was soft but firm, like her embrace. “Love you too, Mary Sage,” she whispered as Mary drifted back to a sleep banished of screams and Martine, and instead filled with the scent of anise and the safety of Nadiya’s arms around her.


	4. Kings and Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anonymous Tumblr prompt: "So you've written about Nadiya calming Mary down but *slaps a "reverse" uno card down on the table* now it's time for Mary to calm Nadiya down from something. Maybe she's overstressed and overworked, maybe Nadiya also has nightmares? Who knows!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (no, I’m not projecting onto this poor girl in her twenties struggling through academia, what are you talking about)
> 
> Notes: the verses Mary quotes are Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11, two of my favorites, and the title's from Magic to Do from Pippin (the complete line is "Kings and things to take by storm." Also, this takes place post-TOSF.

Nadiya didn’t cry, so when Mary found her doing just that at two in the morning on their dumpster couch, she knew something was pretty badly wrong.

“Nad?” she asked, quietly knocking on the wall to get her girlfriend’s attention.

Nadiya startled, jerking around and turning a tear-stained face toward Mary. “Didn’t – didn’t see you there,” she muttered, scrubbing at her cheeks with the edge of a well-worn sleeve. “’T’s nothing. Go back to bed.”

Mary climbed over the back of the couch to flop down next to Nadiya. “It’s not nothing if you’re cryin’ your fuckin’ eyeballs out, Nad, ya filthy liar,” she accused. “What’s up?”

“Got another application rejected,” Nadiya said, waving a hand at her laptop in such a haphazard way that she almost knocked her mug off the coffee table. “Publications don’t count if they don’t go through. Even double PhD’s don’t count, _apparently_. At least that’s what they said.”

Mary climbed into Nadiya’s lap, and Nadiya gave a little sigh, her arms coming up to wrap around her automatically. “You don’t trust ‘em?”

“More like they don’t trust me. After what happened in Nevada?” Nadiya swallowed, and Mary could feel it as she laid her head against Nadiya’s neck. “Someone slipped up once and told me. They – they said –” She broke off.

“Nad?”

“Sabotage. Self-sabotage,” Nadiya choked out. “Everyone’s connected in fucking academia, so now everyone thinks I’m unstable. No wonder nobody wants me within a hundred feet of their lab if they think I blew mine up.”

“Fuck that noise. I’m used t’ people’s shit like that. They’re gonna think what they’re gonna think and nothing you can do is gonna change their minds.”

Nadiya gave another shuddering breath, and buried her face in Mary’s hair. Mary could hear her quiet sobs, but just snuggled closer in against her.

“Whaddya need?” Mary asked when Nadiya had at least half resurfaced.

“I need a job,” Nadiya said, voice stuffy. “And a Kleenex. And my reputation back.”

“I can get one out of the three,” Mary said, pulling a tissue from the nearby box and handing it over. Nadiya blew her nose. “’Rene’s cabin lookin’ good at this point?”

Nadiya groaned. “God, no. This may be hell, but it’s a hell of my own making. I’d rather roast in a crappy Maryland apartment than a Colorado cabin.”

“You’ll find something, Nad,” Mary said softly, stroking Nadiya’s hair back from her forehead and kissing it. “You got this. ‘All things work for good – ”

“‘– to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,’” Nadiya finished, and managed to crack a smile. “I know, I know.”

“How about this one?” Mary kissed her cheek and tasted salt. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Nadiya softened. “What’s that one?”

“Jeremiah.” Mary wrapped her arms around Nadiya. “He’s got you, Nad. _I’ve_ got you.”

_It’s gonna be okay._


	5. Trembling, Tempered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted on tumblr by @aubreyslittle: Mary/Nadiya, "You lied to me."

“You lied to me.”

Nadiya didn’t look up from the microscope. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“You did. You fuckin’ – you said you hadn’t heard from Remy or Irene in weeks, and that was a _lie_. Remy called me last night ‘cause he was worried. He said you haven’t been answering their calls an’ texts.” Mary draped herself over Nadiya’s bent back like an affectionate, grumpy cat. “Nad, you gotta talk to me about this stuff. You can’t just shut yourself in your lab and try to ignore your problems. You –”

“Oh, like you can talk,” Nadiya snapped, jerking upright and knocking Mary away. I may hide, but at least I don’t run. At least I don’t fucking leave people when they need me. I just prepare for that happening.” She turned back to the table with a jerk, shoulders hunched.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Nad?”

Mary heard a hastily muffled sniff, then, “What.”

“D’you think I’m going to leave you?”

“I dunno.”

“Nad.” Mary scooched around so she was between Nadiya and the table. “Please? Please talk to me. I wanna help.”

Nadiya took a shuddering breath and rested her forehead on Mary’s shoulder. “I don’t want… it’s not that… fuck.” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “People are unpredictable, all right? The ones I know especially. But if I… if I control the relationships, the – the interactions, then nothing will ever happen that I don’t see coming.”

“If you shove people away,” Mary said, with the beginnings of realization, “they can’t disappear in the middle of the night. Like… I did last month?”

“I’m sorry,” Nadiya said, and her shoulders shook again. “I don’t… I know it wasn’t your fault, Jesus. But it’s that, and getting a call from Remy in the middle of the night that he’s broken his ankle and needs to crash at our place and what was his insurance info again because Irene won’t answer her phone, and seeing Kardala on the news because she almost caused a hurricane, and – and I just can’t deal with it, okay? I can’t. I can’t deal with it when I don’t know what’s coming.”

Mary’s arms came up around Nadiya and hugged her close. “I can’t pretend I deal with stuff real good either, Nad,” Mary said softly. “Ya can’t always see things coming, and that’s life. But… I can promise you I’ll never leave for good, okay? Maybe we can – make plans for if stuff goes south for me again? Like a place I’ll go if I have to get out? So then you’ll know what’s goin’ on, even if I don’t.”

“Okay.” Nadiya’s voice was muffled in Mary’s shoulder. “Okay, maybe that’d work.”

“An’ you’ll call Irene and Remy?” Mary prodded. “An’ talk to ‘em? So Remy doesn’t call my emergency phone again and scare the bejeezus outta me?”

“Yeah, I’ll call them.”

“Good.”

“Mary Sage?”

“Mmm?”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Nadiya whispered. “I… I really don’t want you to.”

“I won’t, Nad.” Mary kissed the nearest part of Nadiya she could reach – the top of her head. “I won’t.”


	6. Attention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr anonymous prompt: Nadiya/Mary, "Come over here and make me." and "Kiss me."

A small wad of notebook paper hit Nadiya in the back of the head. She twitched, shaking it off. Another one hit her a second later.

“Stop it.”

A minute of calm, then a third bit of paper.

Nadiya sat up, turned around, and glared at Mary Sage, who had her feet up on the kitchen table. Mary Sage grinned, and flicked another wad of paper at Nadiya, hitting her right between the eyes.

“ _Stop_  it!”

“Come over here and make me,” Mary Sage goaded. There was that tell-tale glint in her eyes that said  _Bet you won’t._

Just for that, Nadiya rose to her feet with a jerk and stomped across the room. “Stop. It,” she said, poking Mary Sage in the forehead with each word.

“Kiss me,” Mary Sage promptly.

Nadiya sputtered. “ _What?”_

“I’ll stop if you kiss me.” Mary Sage smiled cheekily.

“You’re the worst. I hope you know that. The worst, worst girlfriend.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mary Sage said smugly, rolling a tiny ball of paper between finger and thumb. “Well?”

Nadiya grabbed her girlfriend’s hand and planted a very quick, very hard kiss on the back of it. “There. Now I’m going to go back to doing  _useful_  things like  _research_  and  _keeping my job_  and - no, no,  _don’t_  give me those big eyes, don’t you  _dare_  -”

“But I  _miss_  you,” Mary Sage said, widening her eyes even more.

Nadiya gave up. As they both knew she would.

It was hard to do your Very Important Research with your girlfriend in your lap like some kind of huge cat, but Nadiya somehow managed it. 

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me about my rarepair on tumblr [@birdiethebibliophile](birdiethebibliophile.tumblr.com)!


End file.
